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The blade cuts into his skin.
Contrary to popular opinion, it does not cut like butter. It does not sink into his arm, elegantly slitting the skin apart to reveal red flesh. No, this blade is old and worn down. Dull.
The blade is biting and tearing and harsh.
Keefe has to press it down, the razor angled at a particular degree to make the slightest dent. It doesn't hurt. He doesn't realise his skin has been torn until a line of red pools along the cut. It doesn't hurt. It's less calming and more frustrating because it really doesn't. He can't feel the sharp sting, or the burning pang, no. All he feels is the haunting numbness that follows him wherever he goes now. It hides under his flesh, wraps itself around his neck, strangling, drowning him. He can't breathe. It has infested his heart, nestled there and it calls it home. Alas, Keefe doesn't like sharing.
The yearning is what does it for him. Not the numbness, not the fear. But the yearning. The want, the need to do something, anything. It's suffocating, unrelenting. To clean his room, to paint, to draw, to call Sophie and ask her how she's doing. But an unmovable force sticks him there, on the floor of his bathroom in an heavy heap of body that tells him to lay here forever. Frozen is the word for it. He can't get up, can't even bother to get to his bed. Keefe is too exhausted to cry. Because crying means caring, and caring means to heal. As horrible as it sounds, for all his wants and needs, Keefe doesn't want to get better. He's just too tired to try. He just wants to lie here forever.
Sometimes though, he picks himself up and it's fine. He feels happy. Deliriously happy. He paints twenty paintings in the span of twenty hours and the high keeps him up for weeks at times. Keefe smiles and laughs, cracking jokes and making plans that he knows he won't honor. Not when he's stuck on the floor of the bathroom, halfway through a shower in pungent pajamas. Not when he doesn’t have a set of clothes that has been washed in the past two months. But he makes them anyway for he is an idiot.
He stares at the wall, lets the blood drip slowly off him, piling at his feet. Keefe's back is against the soaked wall, his legs outstretched on the floor. He sits still, unblinking, the razor in front of him.
He starts laughing first.
Laughter is a funny thing. Yes. He sounds like a madman, he knows this. It makes the whole thing even funnier because really? He's not mad. He's not sick. He's fine. He actually is, and it's not like he's depressed or unhappy. And it's so funny, so goddamn funny because he doesn't even know why he did it. He was just fucking bored. And that's so funny, so hilarious to him. Keefe keeps crackling uncontrollably. He throws his head back, giggling and swearing at the world. And-
"Keefe...?"
The doorknob is pushed open, and Tam is standing there looking so damn stupid. And everything is. Keefe doesn’t stop, doesn't even spare him a look. He can't care.
Keefe wants to yell at him to leave, to just get up and go, but he's still crackling and tears are starting to form, unlike the words in his mouth that lie there unsaid. He looks forward at the wall, at the tip of his pink dolphin shorts.
Tam lets out a sigh. He crotches down, holding both Keefe’s hands, tracing his palm lines with the tips of his fingers. His words are soft, like he's trying not to scare Keefe. Too late. Keefe is already scared.
"Oh Keefe..." Tam, fuck him, sounds so goddamned heartbroken, and it's not even his body. Just leave him the fuck alone. Please. Keefe can do whatever the hell he likes "Does it hurt?"
Keefe laughs again, finally turning to look at Tam. "I wish."
Tam's expression falls even more, and he looks so, so done with Keefe's mess. Keefe couldn't blame him at all. But Tam also looks at him, so, so worried. And Keefe wants to ask him why. He doesn't. What he does is laugh again.
"Leave," He laughs, pushing Tam away and forming a smile and he knows the look in his crazed eyes is maniactic. He knows that Tam is scared. Because who wouldn't be? Even Keefe is scared of himself.
Tam doesn't do that. Tam grabs a tissue and he starts to wipe away the blood on Keefe’s arms. Tam starts to hug, starts to cradle Keefe softly like a five-year-old with scraped knees.
He looks at Keefe, holds his tear-stained eyes and shakes his head. "No," he whispers. "You're not alone."
And fuck, that's when it starts to turn from mad laughter to strangled chokes.
The regret hits him later. So do the tears.
Because what if someone else sees? He's so stupid, so damn stupid because on the arm? Really? How much more obvious can he get? And the tears keep running down, mixing in with the blood. It's fitting, Keefe figures, for both were born out of pain, but then if not, sorrow. It makes him sick, so fucking sick, and the sensation in his gut is so very physical. It's so very real. It's too fucking real. But isn't this what he wanted? To finally feel something?
And then he lets out another laugh, his tears choking him and he coughs. He's drowning. Keefe really does sound like a fucking maniac right now.
Keefe clings to Tam like a lifeline, as if Tam can keep him from drowning. Keefe feels like he’s exploding, and if he keeps clinging, he's going to take Tam with him. Because that's what Keefe is. A ticking timebomb about to destroy itself. Dangerous. But nobody sees that. Why doesn't he? Keefe yells out again for Tam to run, to take cover but Tam hugs the fucking bomb like he can stop the fuse that's already been lit. He's going to get deteriorated in the process and Keefe isn't sure how one can recover from that.
"Shush, love," Tam breathes, mumbling the words into Keefe’s left ear. His breath tickles. "It's okay... it's okay. Let it out."
Tam wipes away the blood so gently, so tenderly, so much more than what Keefe deserves. It drives him crazy, so feverish. Tam is so fucking warm.
Crazy, crazy, crazy. That's a word used far too many times to describe Keefe. His friends joke about it, and so does he. But none of them know. They don't know about this, about how truly goddamned crazy, how messed up he really is inside. They never see. Keefe doesn't want them to. Why the hell is he like this?
Tam, when he finally fucking leaves, Keefe is in relief. But Tam comes straight back and he lets out a wail and Tam, oh Tam is holding his bottle of water that he opens for Keefe.
"Drink." The words aren't a suggestion. They're a command.
Keefe sobs even louder, for what he doesn’t know. Maybe it’s just the fact that he can. His heart drops and his chest is so tight.
Tam helps him up, helps him change into a pair of dry clothes. Tam's clothes, because apparently none of Keefe's are clean enough for him. It smells like Tam.
He drinks the water, and it doesn't really help him feel better, but fuck it at least he's hydrated. Tam tucks him in the bed wordlessly and then Tam starts fucking cleaning his room.
Keefe curls up under the sheets, and Keefe is still now. He doesn't move, doesn't breathe, he doesn’t try to think. His mind is empty. His soul is floating away from his body and he doesn't even believe in god. One would think he would sink. But sink he does as well, for if his mind is floating, then his body is struggling for air, falling faster and faster into the soft bed.
Sleep finds him eventually. Keefe dreams no dream, his mind void of thoughts. When he wakes, it is to bandaged arms, a clean room, and the sweet smell of warm takeaway.
Tam looks at him, and Keefe, too tired to pretend, smiles at him wearily.
They eat. It's some rice from some Thai restaurant, Keefe doesn't pay much attention. What matters is that it is warm.
"Are you okay?" Tam asks finally, breaking the silence of plastic spoons scraping against paper bowls.
Keefe shakes his head.
Tam looks at him, observes. He tilts his head slightly. "Why?"
"I don't know." Keefe replies shakily. It's the truth.
Tam looks like he's on the verge of tears and again, that's funny because Keefe is back to not feeling anything.
At least, the food is warm.
Tam lets out an exhale. He blinks, once, twice. He looks at Keefe before nodding. "Okay." He says softly. That's it. He puts his spoon in his mouth. "Wrong question. What happened?" That was not it.
Keefe wants to break out in a pathetic laughing mess again with tears streaming down his face because he's still not satisfied and hasn't cried it all out yet. Nothing happened. That's what happened. It's so stupid. He should be happy. He should be so fucking happy but no. He's like this. And he doesn't even have an excuse.
"Nothing." Keefe whispers.
"What happened?" Tam inists, and Keefe snaps.
"Nothing!" He wails, standing up, pushing the chair backwards. "I said nothing, and it's nothing and it's so stupid- and I- and I don't know what to do because it's like I'm not even living anymore!"
"Keefe..."
"It's like there's a parasite in my heart and it clings to me, sucking me of any feeling, but whenever I do feel, it's this! But nothing's wrong with me, I don't have any excuse to feel this way!" He wails "I'm living a happy life but all I want to do is quit! And why? I don't know! I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I can't even feel!" Keefe's voice breaks, crackling painfully and he's sobbing again. "I don't know! Nothing happened to make me feel like this because I always was." He admits, throwing the words between him and Tam.
"Keefe..." Tam looks at him so sad, so sorry for him and Keefe hates it so much.
"Get out of my room." He shrieks."I don't need your pity. Go!" He sucks in a breath, sitting down, trembling. "I told you to leave me alone."
"How can I?" Tam inists. "How can I, when you're like this?"
"Like what?" Keefe barks. He shouts the words at Tam, and to his credit, Tam does not flinch. "Crazy?"
Tam stands up, he wraps his arms around Keefe. It's so warm. Fuck, he's so bloody warm.
"No," Tam murmurs gently, holding on steadfast, arms tight around Keefe. "Hurt." He sucks in a breath, pulling Keefe in closer. "How can I leave you alone when you're so hurt?"
Tam presses a kiss to Keefe's forehead and Keefe promptly burst into another round of tears.
"You're not okay." Tam remarks, tracing patterns on Keefe’s back.
"You think I don't know that?" Keefe hiccups.
"No... what I'm saying is... please let people help you. Please allow yourself to get help. See a therapist. Allow yourself to heal."
"I don't want to." See, Keefe is too honest here. Far too honest.
Tam studies him carefully. "Why not?"
"I'm sick of trying. I'm too tired." Is Keefe's simple reply.
"It'll get better, love. I promise."
Keefe sighs, because Tam isn't really listening. "I don't want to get better." He repeats, shakily.
"Why?"
"I'm tired. I told you. Everyday I'm exhausted before I even wake up." Keefe shifts his eyes. "And... I can't do this."
Tam raises an eyebrow, as if urging him to continue.
"I can't do this if I'm better." He confesses. "Whatever's wrong with me is giving me an excuse, a reason. So when I'm fixed and still feel like this, I can't do this."
"Oh Keefe..." Tam squeezes him a little bit tighter, a little closer.
"I'm scared. Terrified."
"Of what?"
"What if... what if there’s nothing wrong with me? What if I'm not fucked up in the head and they can't do anything because it's just me."
"That's not going to happen," Tam reassures him.
"I'm just so tired, Tam."
Tam looks at him gently, lovingly, takes his hands in his soft palms and holds them tight to his warm chest. His heartbeat. "You'll get through this. One day at a time. I promise."
And Keefe lets himself believe him.